Most business and personal users depend heavily upon both client and web-based applications. For example, businesses are typically required to follow strict payroll laws and regulations. As a result, many businesses utilize payroll processing software in order to perform periodic payroll processing. Developers of such applications are required to keep pace with changing laws and regulations in order ensure that users are maintaining compliance. Developers may provide software updates to the users of a software application in order to implement changes to the application after release.
Many of the aforementioned software applications involve complex financial calculations and require a significant time investment by the user. Due to the sensitive nature of these calculations and the potential nuances of changing government requirements and regulations, users may require varying levels of support from software providers. The complexity and cost associated with providing such support can be significant, depending on the application and the user.
On the other hand, for software providers, support can be a leading source of revenue. Accordingly, it is in the interest of software providers to improve the efficiency of their support offering and to focus heavily on usability in their design. Thus, users of both client and web-based applications will be less likely to consume costly support resources. Innovations such as web-based chat have already contributed to increasing the efficiency of support resources for web-based applications. Conversely, client applications have had limited advancement in terms of support.